The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we shall make a somewhat more extensive excursion into the cosmic space, in which the inner course of world evolution on a large scale shall reveal itself to us, and at the same time the intimate connection between this world evolution on a large scale and human evolution on earth. In the world, nothing is without context. To follow these complicated connections in the universe, of course, takes a very, very long time for a human being, and only little by little does one enter, so to speak, into the intimacies of the workings of the universe.

[ 2 ] From previous lectures you have seen how certain entities that inhabit other celestial bodies relate to our own lives, how they have an influence on what we call our lymphatic fluid, what we call our nutritional fluid, and indeed often on what moves in and out of us as sensory perception through our senses. From this alone, you could see how the spirit works far and wide through the universe.

[ 3 ] Today we want to look at the matter from yet another side, and to do so, let us first recall what we have often emphasized: that our Earth, much like man himself, has undergone and will undergo various embodiments.

[ 4 ] We can see three embodiments of our Earth in general: the embodiment immediately before the present state, which we call the old – not our – “Moon”; then another embodiment, which we call “Sun”; and one even further back, which we call “Saturn”. And we prophetically foresee that our Earth will transform into a “Jupiter”, into a “Venus” and into a “Vulcan”.

[ 5 ] Thus we have established the successive embodiments of our earthly planetary life. If you reflect a little on this developmental sequence of our own Earth, you can indeed see from it what we call a “sun” in occult science, around which, when it appears to us as our present sun, a series of planets revolve. If we also speak of a planetary existence of the “sun” and say that our earth itself was a “sun” in an earlier state of development, we are saying, in a certain sense, that this sun, which today forms the center of our planetary system, was not always a sun. It has, so to speak, advanced to the rank of a sun, to the dignity of a sun in the universe. It was once united with what was previously in the earth as material and spiritual forces, so to speak took the best out of it, that which today already contains the highest possibility of development, separated from the earth and left us and a number of forces behind that are dependent on a slower development. It took higher entities with it and placed itself with these higher entities at the center of our system. What is in the sun today was only a planet two stages before and has advanced from being a planet to being a fixed star. This shows you how everything is changeable and in development in the universe. A sun is not a sun from the outset. A fixed star did not simply become a fixed star, but first had to go through the lower school of planetary existence.

[ 6 ] Now, of course, you may ask me: What happens when such a fixed star continues to develop? Just as the fixed star, the existence of the sun, has risen from the existence of a planet, so its development in the cosmos continues. We will certainly understand this further development even better if we look a little more at the further development of our earth.

[ 7 ] It is true that our earth has separated from the sun for a stretch of its cosmic development. The sun, so to speak, is taking a rapid path of development with its beings. Today our Earth is taking a different path with its entities. But these entities and the whole Earth will one day, after they have been offered the opportunity to complete their present development in a separate existence, find the connection to the sun beings; for our Earth will reunite with the sun. It will indeed merge with the Sun again in our present stage of evolution on Earth, just as it separated from the Sun during the evolution of the Earth. But then it must go out again during the Jupiter state. The Earth beings must go through this Jupiter state again separately from the Sun. Then a reunion will follow, and during the Venus state our Earth will be permanently united with the Sun, permanently absorbed into the Sun. During the Vulcanic state, our Earth will have become the Sun itself within the Sun and will have advanced a little towards the development of the Sun, a little of existence which the beings who have always remained in the Sun, even if they are higher, could not have achieved themselves. Their earthly existence was necessary for them to develop as they have done, with the everyday consciousness that alternates between waking and sleeping. This is because it is connected with the separation from the sun. Beings that always live in the sun do not have day and night. This sense consciousness, which we call the 'day consciousness', which will develop into higher states in the future, brings the experiences of the physical outer space into the solar development. In this way, we also give something to the beings of the sun, enriching them. And from this, what is achieved on Earth, increased by what is conquered on the Sun, the Vulcan existence arises. This volcanic state is already a higher state than our present solar state. Thus the Earth develops, the Sun continues to develop until they can unite in the volcanic evolution.

[ 8 ] Now you may ask me further: What happens to the cosmic evolution of a planet that has developed into a sun? We may say that our Earth itself, when it has attained its Venus state, has become a sun, and on Venus all beings are solar beings; indeed, they are even more than the beings of the present sun. What then becomes of such a planetary evolution?

[ 9 ] You see: what we are about to discuss will sound quite grotesque and twisted to all those whose ideas have become fixed in what is called modern astronomy. But it is true, it is the reality of cosmic evolution: when a planet like our Earth has ascended to the sun's existence, when it has gradually united with its sun and the whole thing rises even higher than the sun's existence, then something arises from this as an even higher stage of development, which you can also perceive in a certain respect in the sky: Then what we call a 'zodiac' arises; this is the higher stage compared to the development of the fixed stars. When beings are no longer limited to a mere fixed star, but expand their own development so powerfully that it extends beyond fixed stars, that the fixed stars lie as embedded bodies within them, then this higher stage of development is the development of the zodiac. In fact, the forces that act from a zodiac on a planetary system have themselves developed earlier in a planetary system and have progressed to a zodiacal stage.

[ 10 ] And now you remember back to the ancient Saturn evolution, to the first embodiment of our Earth. This Saturn is, so to speak, once lit up in space as the first heralding dawn of our planetary existence. You also know that the first germ of our physical body developed on this old Saturn. This Saturn, even in its most solid state, was by no means as solid, as physically solid, as our Earth is now. It had a fine, thin existence. That which permeates all beings today as warmth, which in occultism is called “fire”, was its matter. And we can imagine the fact that around this Saturn, this first dawn state of our planetary existence, stood the zodiacal constellations, although not yet as they are today. These zodiacal constellations were around the old Saturn at that time in such a way that one could hardly distinguish the individual stars from one another. They shone only a little brightly, like light streaks spreading out of Saturn. You can best get an idea of this if you imagine that Saturn, like our Earth, is surrounded by a zodiac, surrounded by streaks of light. And in the course of the earth's evolution itself, the masses of light condensed into the zodiac's present stellar masses, so that the zodiac, if we want to use an abstracting word, has differentiated itself from the original masses of flame strips. And where did these masses of flame strips themselves come from?

[ 11 ] It originated from the ancient planetary system that preceded our own planetary system. Planetary developments also preceded Saturn at a time that, if we really speak in terms of astronomy and occultism, we can no longer describe as “time” in our sense, because it had a somewhat different character than our “time”. We can say that for today's human imagination and for today's human concepts, it is such a fabulous concept that we have no word to express it. But we can say by analogy that those forces which preceded our planetary system in an earlier planetary existence dissolved into the strip, and only a small part of the matter gradually aggregated in the interior to form this first dawn state of the Earth, old Saturn, and the forces that were in the zodiac shone down from the universe.

[ 12 ] There is something very peculiar when we compare planetary existence with zodiacal existence. The occultist has two words to express the difference between planetary existence and zodiacal existence. He says: Everything that is united in the zodiac is under the sign of “duration”; everything that is united in the planetary existence is under the sign of “time”. You can get an idea of what this means if you remember that the zodiac remains unchanged for concepts that reach far, far into the future. Each of the individual planets can go through long and widely differing developmental epochs, changing a great deal; but that which operates up there in the zodiac remains relatively permanent and fixed. These concepts are only relative, however. If we then expand our concepts even further, there is only one difference in relation to speed in these changes. The changes in the zodiac take place slowly; the changes in the planetary world and even in the fixed star existence take place very quickly in relation to the events in the zodiac; so it is only a relative difference. For all human concepts, we can almost say that the planetary existence is the sphere of finiteness, the zodiacal existence the sphere of infinity. This is, as already mentioned, relative, but for the time being sufficient for the human concept.

[ 13 ] We may say one thing, and I ask you to take this very much into consideration: that which has been active in a planetary existence, that which has become the sun, rises up into heavenly existence, into zodiacal existence. And when it has arrived at this zodiacal existence, what does it do then? Then it sacrifices itself! — and I ask you to consider this word. In a mysterious way, the first dawn condition of the earth, ancient Saturn, came into being through a sacrifice of the zodiac. The forces that gathered the first fine mass of Saturn were the forces that streamed down from the zodiac and brought about the first germinal formation of the physical human being on Saturn. And this went on and on, for you must not imagine that this happens only once! It happens all the time, basically, that within what we call a planetary system, the forces that have developed to the higher level are sacrificed after they themselves have passed through a planetary system. We can almost say that what is first in a planetary system develops into a solar existence, then into a zodiacal existence, and then acquires the ability to become creative itself, to sacrifice itself in a planetary existence. And the forces continually “rain down” from the zodiac into the planetary existence, and continually they ascend again; for that which is to become the zodiac itself must gradually ascend again. We may therefore say that in our earth the distribution of forces is such that on the one hand there are descending forces, and on the other ascending forces from and to the zodiac. This is the mysterious interaction of the zodiac with our earth. Forces descend, forces ascend. These are the steps of the mysterious “ladder to heaven”, on which forces descend and ascend. They are variously hinted at in religious writings; you will also find them hinted at in Goethe's “Faust”:

How heavenly powers ascend and descend
And the golden buckets are passed...

[ 14 ] For our discretion, for our human comprehension, these forces began to descend with the Saturnine existence of the Earth, and when the Earth was at its center, the step had already been taken for the forces to gradually ascend again. And now we have come so far that we have, so to speak, passed the midpoint of our development. In the middle of our evolution we were, of course, in the middle of the Atlantean era; and what people have been through since the Atlantean era is actually something that goes a little way beyond the middle of our evolution. So we may say that in a certain way today more forces are ascending than descending from the zodiac.

[ 15 ] If you imagine the entire zodiac, you have to realize that some forces descend from this zodiac, and some forces ascend. We summarize those forces that are currently in the process of ascending development under the constellations Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, because they also belong to these constellations. These are the seven constellations that correspond to the ascending forces. Five constellations, for example, correspond to the descending forces: Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. So you can see how forces rain down from the zodiac and ascend — how the ascending seven correspond to the descending five constellations. The forces that ascend also correspond in man to the higher limbs of his being, to the higher, nobler qualities. Those forces that are in a state of descending evolution must first pass through man, must first attain in man that stage through which they too can become ascending forces.

[ 16 ] In this way you will understand how everything in the universe can interact, how everything in the universe must have a connection and a certain relationship. But we must firmly hold on to the fact that this working is always happening, always there. So that, even if we are only at some moment in our development, we can always say to ourselves: Yes, there are certain forces now present that move in and out of man, forces that descend and forces that ascend. For each of these forces there comes a moment when they transform from descending into ascending forces. All forces that become ascending forces are first descending. They descend, so to speak, to man. In man they gain the power of ascent.

[ 17 ] When our earth was at the center of its development, after it had gone through three planetary stages of existence: Saturn, Sun, Moon, and when it had arrived at the fourth planetary and now still has the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan states ahead of it – as “Earth” it is therefore in the middle of its existence – it had to undergo three “life states”, which are also called “rounds”. She has gone through three, and she is now in the fourth stage of life. Then she had to undergo three “form states”, the arupic, the rupic, and the astral, until she attained physical existence. So in relation to the form states, too, she is in the middle of her development. As physical Earth, in the fourth form state of the fourth life state of the fourth planetary existence, it has had to undergo three races: the first the polaric, the second the hyperborean, the third the lemurian race. The Atlantian race is the fourth. In the Atlantian race, humanity was exactly in the middle of those developments of which we speak in general. Since the middle of the Atlantean development, humanity has progressed beyond this middle point, and since the middle of the Atlantean race, the time has come when conditions have begun for the first time for man, where there is an excess of ascent. If we were to measure the ratio of descending and ascending forces to the zodiac before the middle of the Atlantic period, we would have to say that there is an equilibrium. We would then have to speak differently and list as the ascending forces: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo. We would have to count Libra among the other group, those that are in the process of descending.

[ 18 ] But something else is connected with all this. You must be aware that when we speak of such cosmic processes, we are not speaking of physical or etheric bodies, but of entities that inhabit the heavenly bodies in question, which we are naming. When we speak spiritually of the human being, we say that the complete human being whom we have in mind, and whom we alone can have in mind, is a seven-part entity consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral body, I, spirit self, life spirit and spiritual man. It is not yet complete today, but it will be when its sevenfold entity has reached full development. But in the great universe there are not only such entities as man is in his development. There are other entities, for example, those of which we cannot say that, like today's man, they have a physical body as the lowest member. There are entities for which we have to count differently. We can write down the members of the human being like this:

7. Spirit Man
6. Life Spirit
5. Spirit Self
4. I
3. Astral body
2. Etheric body
1. Physical body

[ 19 ] Now there are entities whose lowest member is the etheric body; these are also seven-part entities, which then have an eighth part above the spiritual man. For them it begins with the etheric body, astral body and so on, and they end with a member that lies above our Atma, above the Spirit Man. There are other entities whose lowest member is the astral body; but they have an eighth and a ninth member above the Spirit Man. There are beings whose lowest member is the I, who therefore do not have a physical body, etheric body or astral body in our sense, but who reveal themselves in such a way that the I pushes outwards, without the three veils, beings who therefore send I's outwards everywhere. They have an eighth, ninth and tenth member for this; they are described in the Apocalypse as “beings full of eyes”. Then there are beings that begin with the Spirit Self, with Manas, as the lowest member. They have an eleventh member. And finally, there are beings that begin with the Life Spirit, which then have a twelfth member. So there are entities that have the Buddhi as their lowest member, just as the human being has a physical body as his lowest member, and that have a highest member for it, which we can best describe with the number twelve. These are high, exalted entities that tower far above anything that man can even imagine. How can an idea of these wonderful, exalted entities be provided at all?

[ 20 ] If we want to characterize man according to a certain aspect, then he presents himself to us, to the universe, as a receiver. Outside of you, things and beings are spread out; you perceive them, you form concepts of them. If you think that the world around you is empty or dark, you would be unable to perceive anything, no objects would give you concepts. You depend on the outside world to receive the content of your inner being. It is a characteristic of the human being that he is a receptive being, that he receives the content of his soul, his inner being, from outside, that things must be there if he is to acquire content. The human ether body is formed in such a way that it could not experience anything within itself if it did not owe this experience, everything that occurs within it, to the whole surrounding world. These beings, which I have just characterized to you, which have the spirit of life as their lowest member, are in a completely different situation. These beings do not depend on receiving from outside for their life, but are centers of strength, giving outwards, creative. You know from the description I have always given you how the I also works into the etheric body, how the Buddhi is nothing other than a transformed etheric body, so that the spirit of life is also substantially an etheric body. Yes, the twelfth limb is also an etheric body in these exalted beings, but an etheric body that radiates life, that works in the world in such a way that it does not receive life but gives it, and is able to sacrifice it continually.

[ 21 ] Now we ask ourselves: Can we then form a conception of a being that is somehow related to us and that radiates life into our universe in such a way? This radiating life is one that continually flows into the world in an invigorating way. Can we form a conception of this?

[ 22 ] Let us go back for a moment to what we said at the beginning of today's lecture. We said that there are ascending and descending forces, forces ascending to the zodiac and descending from the zodiac. How did man come into the position of something rising up from him at all? What has happened to man that something can rise up from him out of his being? He has come into this position through the fact that it was first prepared for a long time and then it continued to progress further and further – his I. This I has been prepared for a long, long time. Because basically all existence on the Saturn state of the Earth, on the Sun state and on the Moon state, which had created the covers that were to receive the I, was preparation for the I. There other entities created the dwelling for the I. Now on earth the dwelling is so far created that the I could take hold in man, and from that time the I in man began to work on the outer bodily sheaths from within. That the I can work from within has at the same time caused the excess, the measure of ascending and descending powers that goes beyond equality, to arise. As long as the I could not yet work in man, the forces that are the ascending ones gradually developed to the middle; and when the I struck in man, the forces were so far that the ascending and the descending held each other in balance. The entry of the I into the human being means that the ascending and descending forces were in balance, and it is up to the human being to bring this balance to bear in the right way. This is why the occultists named the constellation that was entered at the moment it began to approach the ego 'Libra'. Up to the end of Virgo, the deeds of the I were indeed prepared in our planetary development, but it did not come to the I. Now, with the moment of Libra, the I had begun to take its own part, so that the I has brought about an important moment in its development.

[ 23 ] Imagine what it means that the I has reached this stage of development: From now on, the I was allowed to participate in the forces that belong to the zodiac, it was allowed to work into the zodiac. It is absolutely true: the more the I strives for the highest point of its development, the more it works into the zodiac. Nothing happens in the innermost part of the I that does not draw its consequences up into the zodiac. This is absolutely true. And as man, with his I as a human being, actually lays the foundation for developing into his Atma or spiritual being, he increasingly develops the forces that enable him to work up into the scales of the zodiac. He will attain his full power over this zodiacal balance when he has 'pushed through' his ego to the atma or spiritual man. Then he will be a being that radiates something that passes from the stage of time into the stage of duration, of eternity.

[ 24 ] As man goes his way, there are other entities in whom that which is, so to speak, the highest effect in man is the lowest effect. Let us now seek out these beings for whom the lowest is just as important as Libra in the zodiac is for man. If we write down man in the zodiac, we have him reaching up to Libra. The entity that, with its essential nature, belongs entirely to the zodiac, whose forces belong entirely to the zodiac and which expresses itself in planetary life only in its lowest link, which is designated by Libra – just as in the case of man the lowest link is designated by Pisces – that is the entity which, as you can see, permeates life throughout our entire universe:

[ 25 ] The way a person takes up life, this being radiates life throughout our entire universe. This is the Entity that is capable of making the great sacrifice and is inscribed in the zodiac as the Entity sacrificing Itself for our world. As man strives upwards into the zodiac, so this Entity sends us Its sacrificial offering from Aries, to which It belongs, as It does to man from Libra. And just as man turns his I up to Libra, so this entity pours its being over our sphere as a sacrifice. This entity is therefore called the sacrificing “mystical lamb,” because lamb is the same as ram; hence the designation of the sacrificing lamb or ram for Christ. Christ is now characterized as belonging to the whole cosmos. His ego strives to the ram; and when the ego flows to the ram, he thereby becomes the “Great Sacrifice” himself and thus stands in a relationship with all of humanity, and in a certain way these entities and forces that are on earth are his creations. He stands with his whole being in the sun and is connected with the moon and the earth in his creations, and his power lies in the constellation of the Lamb. Thus the powers that he might become the creator of these beings lie in the constellation of Aries or the Lamb. The designation of the “sacrificial lamb” or the “mystical lamb” is brought down from heaven itself.

[ 26 ] This is one of the aspects, one of the views that one arrives at when one looks up from our limited existence into the celestial spaces and sees how the celestial forces and beings interact in the universe. And through this, we gradually become aware of the forces that go from heavenly body to heavenly body, just as forces go from human soul to human soul as love and hate. We see soul forces going from star to star, and we learn to recognize that what is written in the sky is what is done and acted upon by such forces in space.